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Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Floored!

This is out of sequent of actual events. However, I wanted to share our living room flooring obstacle and how I came up with an inexpensive temporary solution that we could live with.

When we first looked at our house we noted that the dining room had light wood flooring, the stairs and all of the upstairs had dark wood stain and the living room had carpet. We just aren't fans of carpet, so we both pulled back a corner of the carpet and were relieved to see the same light oak as the dining room.

One morning, shortly after we had moved in, about a year ago, I decided that I would pull up the carpet while the hubs slept. I was positive that I could do it before he even woke up and he wouldn't complain the I had started another project before finishing the other dozen or so.

I was doing just fine until I ran into a... Well it was a... "WhatTheHeck" type of moment.

I just couldn't believe someone would take the time to strip the floors but not continue with a section smack dab in the middle of the living room floor. It looked as if they had pulled the edges of a big rug up and stripped right to that point. Once finished they just plopped that big old rug back down and went about their business.

I mean, can you believe it? And, wouldn't you know that was precisely when the hubs woke up and came down the stairs. Now, normally he greets me in the morning with a, "Morning, beautiful!" but not that morning it was more like a, "Why? Why?"

He helped me finish removing the carpet and I tried for a couple of months to live with it by layering a couple of rugs over the dark spot. However, it did quite work....

As you can see the rugs were just a little shy of the LARGE dark patch.

I did attempt to fix the problem and by fix I mean do the same thing as they had done... Pull the rug back and sand the floor up to a couple of inches under the rug. I figured that once it was stain the same color as the lighter oak I we could live with it until we could afford new flooring in a couple of years.

Excuse the poor photography I found these pictures on my facebook timeline.

In theory, this seemed like an excellent idea but in fact I could never get the stain to match the light colored oak. I must have tried three different stains.

So I gave up and just moved onto other project. And, we once again lived with mismatched flooring for a couple more months when an idea struck me.

Why not make the dark stain look intentional???

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So with the help of our cat, Squeaker Man, I pulled up the rug.

As you can see the borders were haphazard and really needed to be squared up. First I attempted to do math and tried to figure out the size of the square but that just didn't work. Not for me at least.

So looked at it from another angle... so to speak. And, with a square and a level I marked out straight lines. I don't seem to have pictures of that step.

Hubs and I then went around the border with a sander and squared up where I had placed the pencil marks.

In the following pictures you can see my pencil marks

I decided that I would like some kind of border so I thought that the best bet would be to leave a section of the border the light color and stain the interior dark. Once I had the painters tape down and the stain completed, I realized that there wouldn't be enough contrast between the original light stain and my fresh sharp edge.

That is when I came up with the idea of adding a second strip of painters tape on the outside of the new edge and painting the new edge 'BLACK' for a pop.

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I let it all dry prior to removing the painters tape. And, the results... I loved it!!! It isn't perfect but it is so much better.

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If you look close there are sander marks, but still it looks so much more uniform and that is what I wanted.

And, this is what it looks like today.﻿

Like I said, it isn't perfect but it looks so much better and I can live with it for a couple of years until we get the money saved up for new floors.

And, here is one more picture... a side-by-side before and after.

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As you can see we have added wainscot and I have painted out all of the trim, including the stair rail. But all of that is for another post. But for now... I love what we have done to make this house our home.

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About Me

My name is Nanette, but most people know me as Nan. I am the owner, founder and lead stylist of "Just Being Nan". Born with a true love for clothes and never satisfied with just “getting dressed,” I have always selected an “outfit” for the occasion. And, for years I acted as stylist to my friends and family.
I have found myself in a myriad of situations where I needed to "look the part" and want to help you do the same. No matter what your current wardrobe challenges or desires are, I've got every situation covered and am thrilled to have founded "Just Being Nan" to fulfill my dream of evolving my love for fashion into a business.
Please follow me on this adventure and if you have any questions please feel free to ask.